Chelynne (58 page)

Chelynne slowly rose and went to sit before the mirror. She dabbed a little powder on her cheeks, steeling her mind against Gwen.

“You had us all mighty fooled, I admit that much. Your innocent act. Not daring to trouble yourself by taking up with the king! You’ve had a grand time, I doubt not, playing the virtuous maid. Is that what you’ve been after all along? Royal traffic?”

Chelynne slowly turned and looked at the woman. “Madam, you cannot be blamed for assuming others would take the same road you have traveled. I understand the reason you cannot recognize virtue.”

Gwen laughed loudly at that, not offended at all. “Virtue, is it? My, my, whoring goes by some mighty splendid names in your circle.”

Chelynne sighed. “I cannot believe you are real, madam,” she returned dispassionately.

“Real enough,” Gwen sneered. “Real enough to have had enough of your simple game. I am amazed. So sweetly you pull it together. Tell me, how did you convince Chad into such a willing cuckold? You must be mighty tired.”

“Gwen!” she snapped. “Have done with this vulgarity. I’m in no humor for it.”

“Oh, you’re in no humor for it! I protest, madam. You seem to be in grand humor, clinging to your earl like a twisting vine and playing all the while with the king. The sweet little countess! The one virtuous woman at court! I was as fooled as the rest. I thought you nothing of an adventuress. Now I see your schemings! To have them both!”

“So, that’s what it is,” Chelynne breathed in wonder. “You love him still!”

Gwen only laughed. “Love him?” She moved near the mirror and touched a tight curl at the base of her neck. She saw her age, the tired, listless look about the eyes. It was difficult for her to control the urge to scratch and claw Chelynne’s lovely young face. “No, I don’t love him! Do you think I would be chasing a man with not one wife, but two? Little countess,” she sneered. “They’re all laughing at you! All of them! You’re nothing! If I wanted him I could have him like that!”

She raised her hand to give a quick snap of her fingers but never completed the action.

“Madam!”

She turned slowly, sick in the pit of her stomach, to face the earl of Bryant, his face twisted with rage. She had no idea how long he had been standing there in the doorway, how much he had heard. Inside she trembled almost uncontrollably, outside she was cool as ice.

He took two steps into the room and faced Gwen. She was a large woman, nearly as tall as he, but faced with his anger she seemed meek and small. It was obvious; the rage that filled him was eager to be spent.

“Two wives,” he said. “And who do you make my other wife to be, Lady Graystone?”

Gwen lifted her chin fearlessly. She could either betray her own plots or play the innocent to the end. Inwardly she retreated. “Anne—” she started.

He grabbed her by the arms and brought her face close to his. “Anne has been dead for six years! What game do you play now?”

Gwen trembled in his relentless grasp. “Mondeloy,” she breathed. “He told me your wife lives. He showed me where you keep her and I’ve seen you there. ‘Tis your son abiding there rightly enough, you could not deny that. And the woman there is heavy with child.”

“Mondeloy? Doubtless you invented the story and plotted with him. Were Anne living, there would be no need to steal the marriage contract that proves my son is my legitimate heir!” He cast her away, wiping his hands on his coat sleeves as if the touch of her had sullied him. He went straight to Chelynne and drew her to her feet.

Once again he faced Gwen. “The boy is my son and the woman is the wife of a friend. She is in my care and under my protection.”

He looked down at Chelynne and saw the confused eyes staring back at him. He touched her cheek. “Are you all right, my love?”

Dumbly, her heart pounding within her breast, she simply nodded. Though she could not speak she questioned him with her eyes. Chad looked at her with confusion of his own for a moment. Then his mouth formed a rigid line and he snapped his head back to Gwen. “So that’s what you’ve been about. You had your sport with Chelynne, hoping to convince her that ours was not a marriage true...but that I was wed to another?”

Gwen was beaten at one game but held out for a possible advantage in another. She turned her head toward the mirror and smoothed her hair, trying to seem bored with his accusation. “The possibility seemed real enough to me. How would I know Mondeloy lied?” She turned back to Chad and smiled lazily. “I’ve seen you with the woman. You seemed more to her than her husband’s acquaintance.”

Chad spoke slowly and clearly. “Do not hope to intimidate me as you would other personages of breeding who would not understand your disgusting methods. I’ve warned you more often than I care to remember, Gwen. It is only in deference to my wife’s distaste for violence that I leave you untouched now.”

It was some instinct for survival that prompted Gwen to speak hastily, defending herself. “You play the lover scorned, darling. Speaking up to me in the presence of your wife is most chivalrous, I’m sure, but does the little lamb know what we’ve been to each other?”

Chad struggled for control. He let his eyes move over Gwen with one long glance before returning to her face. Disgust and utter contempt glittered in his eyes. “I believe she can well enough guess what you’ve been to me, and to a score of others.”

He moved to take Chelynne’s arm and lead her from the room, not daring to look back in Gwen’s direction. His hands trembled with the desire to find her throat and squeeze the life out of her.

Gwen felt something inside of her collapse when he walked away. She knew it was for the last time; there would never again be a method to have him back, even temporarily. She fought the urge to cry tears of rage and pain. In a sudden fit of temper she whirled, intending to chase after them. She froze in her tracks. There, in the frame of the door that had just seen the earl’s departure with his wife, stood the king, a faint, cynical smile twisting his lips.

“Your Majesty, I—”

“Never mind your excuses, madam. I have long prided myself in being surrounded by the most beautiful women. Women of quality, with breeding and grace. I am most disappointed in my own poor judgment this time.”

“Your Majesty, I beg your forgiveness, I was—”

“Of course I forgive you, my dear. I know how jealousy smarts and I know the pain of final defeat.”

“I’m most grate—”

“The court moves to Windsor soon. You may go where you will. Your company is no longer desired.”

“Your Majesty!”

“My mind is made. There is nothing more to say.”

Gwen stiffened. Chelynne was all to blame. She never once considered her outburst wrong and certainly not deserving of this punishment. “She’s an army to protect her now,” she murmured.

Charles shook his head in exasperation. Gwen had had her place with Charles in his more frivolous moments, as many others had. She simply couldn’t bind him in any way, as no one could. Her beauty was admirable, but she was as expendable as any.

“Women never cease to amaze me. Instead of loathing her for her success, why not take a lesson from her?”

Gwen died a little at his every word. She was dismissed from Chad, rejected by the king and his court. Everything that held any importance for her was gone.

“It’s a little late for that, Your Majesty,” she said with harsh resentment.

“Yes, madam. It is.”

Chelynne was not put through any more that night. The confrontation with Gwen had been the final straw and Chad took her directly to their coach.

“Now I see what has happened,” Chad said. “Gwen compounded your doubts tenfold with her story...and you never came to me. Why?”

Chelynne shuddered inside. She turned her eyes up to him and spoke quietly, still shaken by the turn of events. Relief was something she wasn’t feeling yet. “I intended to. I went to your study straightaway, the moment I left the coach. She took me there to see the woman she said was your wife.” Chelynne laughed ruefully. “I believed her...and how I hated you! I would have faced you then, but I heard you screaming that you would do away with ‘her’ once and for all.” Tears collected in Chelynne’s eyes and her voice caught. “I thought you meant me,” she fairly whispered.

Chad’s arms went around her. “My God, what you’ve been through because of me! If only I had had the sense to tell—”

“But you are not all to blame, Chad. I am at fault. I found the paper you spoke of. It was hidden among my aunt’s letters at Welby Manor. I knew Harry had stolen it.”

“You have it?”

“I had it taken safely away and stored in my coffer at Hawthorne House.” She laughed nervously. “I wouldn’t have found it at all, but that I was indeed searching for something of my parents in that house. What I told you was never a lie.”

“Even then you didn’t come to me.” He looked into her eyes. “Did you fear me so much?”

“Fear you? I feared losing you.” She sniffed and fought the urge to crumble into sobs. “If there was any chance that you could love me, however slight, I would wait upon that day.”

“Even when you thought I hated you!” Chad held her closely, kissing her brow, her hair. “And I have loved you! From the first I loved you! For all the months that I turned on you, ‘twas my own heart I held in exile.” He lifted her chin to look into her eyes. “The woman I spoke of that day was Gwen. Bestel told me she had come to call on you. She had seduced me with a plan to retrieve that record of marriage from Harry. She has been in his close company for months. Together they’ve played us for fools and sought to tear us apart.”

“And that was Harry’s intention? Only to hurt me?” She shook her head in frustration. “I will never understand why he hates me so.”

“He is not simply mischievous, Chelynne. In gaining that paper he took part in the murder of the priest and the burning of that church. A young laundry girl was raped, beaten, and left for dead. She names Harry as her attacker. But she will not swear to it again. She is too frightened.”

Chelynne’s eyes were wide and stunned. She had never suspected Harry capable of such crimes. “And you were silent!”

“I had no proof. Possession of that record would have sent him to the Tower, but it was too well hidden. Even now he could deny having a hand in stealing it.”

Chelynne was quiet for a moment, digesting this news. Finally she spoke, not daring to look at him. “You suspected me.” Chad started to speak but she cut him off. “If you believed me innocent you would have brought your son home to me.”

“In the beginning, perhaps. Early in our marriage I wondered if you were involved, but later it was only because I had held the secret for too long. I looked for a way to tell you.”

“And the woman?” she asked quietly.

He sighed. “The wife of John Bollering. He lives. We staged the duel and pretended him dead to protect him from Lord Shayburn. Even now we await the king’s decision. He sits with Shayburn in the Tower.”

“And you could not tell me that he lives?” she asked with a strong hint of anger in her voice.

His arms tightened around her. “It agonized me to see you suffer with guilt because you thought him dead, but I knew that if you even unwittingly let it slip that he was alive, it could cost him his life. What John has done in Bratonshire could still have violent repercussions. Shayburn literally stole those lands from John’s father, and John has turned Shayburn’s game back on him. He was the thief who saved you from Captain Alex.”

Chelynne gasped. “He sent the knife to me!” Chad nodded. “Chad, he pitied my state! He hoped I would guess that he lived!”

“I think perhaps that was his intent.”

“What will you do now? Could John be hurt for this?”

“I think he will come out of it better than either of us dared hope. My work is done. I cannot hurt Gwen any more than she has hurt herself with her deception. I cannot help John anymore; that is left to the king. And Harry...I leave to you. He is your kin. If it is in your mind to forgive him, I will do my best to understand. If you will bring charges against him I will support you.”

Chelynne was quiet for a moment. “My work is done, Chelynne,” Chad said. “I know I’ve had a poor way of showing you how I feel. Even with all that has passed between us I believe there has always been love. Long ago I should have seen it and acted, but I was a fool. Even the strongest men are weak in some things.”

Just when she would have answered him the door to their coach opened and the footman looked within. Neither of them had even realized they were already home. Reluctantly Chelynne drew herself out of his arms and let the footman help her down.

Wordlessly they climbed the stairs. Chad held her arm, and when they came to his chamber door he paused and looked down into her eyes. His were aglow with warmth and sincerity. “We have allowed time to deal with family and friends, even with those who would tear us apart, but we have taken no time for ourselves. Our time has finally come, love, and I will hold you to me. Let me be your arm, for I would give you strength. And you...be my heart, for I need you to teach me the gentle art of loving.”

Chelynne looked toward her chamber door. There was a light from within that told her Stella waited patiently to help her make ready for bed. She wondered what words she could use to invite him to join her there. Then she realized no words were necessary. She turned in his arms and told him with her lips. Her arms held him fiercely and she kissed him with a passion even she did not know existed within her. He lifted her into his arms and carried her through the door to his bedroom. With his foot the door was slammed behind them and no servant would dare touch that portal until morning’s light.